~ Proud owners of lady parts

Badger Vs Disability: A grudge match

I’m not going to be as foolish as Neil Wallis and declare that petitions are competing but something has been playing on my mind along these lines. Pat Onions started a petition some time ago now asking the government to “Stop and review the cuts to benefits and services which are falling disproportionately on disabled people, their carers and families”. This petition which closes in the not too distant future has only attracted 49,530 signatures. Meanwhile the petition to stop the badger cull has received 135,662 signatures in a much smaller space of time and a lot more media attention to boot. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge the badgers. I’m a vegetarian animal lover. Badgers are great. But how come the badger loving masses of old Britannia aren’t signing both petitions? Bottomface investigates.

Our first problem is that badgers are cute little blighters. We’ve all seen them, either in real life or on the television, scampering around in badger sets. It’s adorable. I wouldn’t be so bitter as to suggest this was a staged media event on the part of the badgers, but perhaps food for thought? Badgers are such visual ambrosia we’ve anthropomorphised the hell out of them. There’s only one thing cuter than a badger: a badger in people clothes. Thanks to Kenneth Grahame and Wind in the Willows I’d also suggest many of us are working under the misapprehension that badgers are sage creatures. I’d like to dispel this myth right now- there was a badger set in the nature reserve of my old school and not once did I hear a badger say anything that I would consider in anyway poignant.

People with disabilities, on the other hand, just aren’t that cute. I’m not saying that there isn’t the odd cute disabled person. There are plenty of cute kids with disabilities, my son who has autism has dozens of cute selling points, but as a collective whole disabled people just aren’t particularly cute. I’d go so far as to say that their marketing team is so appallingly crap they just come across as, well, people. Disabled people have also not had the same media glorification of the badgers. Half the time they just come across as grudge bearing misanthropes. We all remember Chris in Emmerdale.

So there you have it cuteness and marketability is clearly won by the badgers. I was going to argue that people with disabilities don’t spread TB, but then I unfortunately reminded myself that all people were pretty good at spreading TB for years. Alas people are prone to spitting on the streets and spreading all manner of crap. I’d like to think the wheelies aren’t responsible for this though; they know what it’s like trying to self-propel yourself amongst everyone’s detritus and filth without getting any of those shitty germs on your hands. So perhaps that is one in favour of disability after all. Yes, it’s tenuous, but I’ll take it. Badgers spread TB whereas disabled people are a lot less likely to. So, in your face badgers!

Another thing badgers like to do when the cameras aren’t rolling is giving any idiot who decides to stroke them a rather nasty nip. Now again I can’t argue that a disabled person has never bitten, or gotten pissed and thrown a punch, but when was the last time you saw a disabled person with teeth like this?

I’m not trying to use dirty tricks, just present you with the facts. If you’re going to sign a petition to protect these media courting hell mammals then why not sign one to protect loveable, peaceable disabled people too? Because, like the badgers, they do need saving. Disabled people are dying as a result of welfare reform. There have been numerous suicides already and the worst is yet to come. We have the startling fact that 32 people a week died after being found fit for work. Just because people are being found fit for work doesn’t mean that they can suddenly start doing a job, so what options are they left with? The situation is becoming increasingly desperate. So despite my having placed the badgers and people with disabilities in competition with each other, they actually have some common ground: they’re both at risk of eugenics. So sign the petitions, make a placard, save the badgers. They need our help. But please do the same for people who have disabilities, because disabled people are badgers too…. Or some words to that effect.

P.S. This is the bit where you visit Pat’s petition and sign, or write an email or letter to your MP telling them to stop these cuts and halt the, appalling not fit for work, work capability assessment. Oh and spare a thought for the badgers, and sign their petition too.

I signed & share Pats petition whenever I can I’ve shouted for Badgers too from start of new cull, why? because it’s my choice yes but also because it’s wrong there is another way. To me they are equally important as both persecuted through no fault of own. No dig intended at you samedifference1

Very well written and enjoyable article. However you must acknowledge that it is the abuse of the benefits system that has made life harder for those who are genuinely disabled. The atos/ back to work assessments need improvement but we need rigorous checks on eligability to ensure those who have genuine need are provided with fair benefits. Ps I am a vegetarian animal lover too :)

Just shows how the propaganda on fraud has worked & so many still believe they are not taking away from those who really need it when they are. The disability benefits are different from the work
ones & they have that wrong for assessing sickness.What a web of deceit they weaved!

Yup. Damn those five in a thousand people whom we have thoughtlessly allowed to represent the rest of us. Tell you what – I’ll take responsibility, right now, for setting that right. Just give me the care I need to get out of my house and wheelchair accessible ways along the street, and (with the help of somebody to lift me up and move my legs) I’ll go and give them a kicking.

Disability funding has risen due to better welfare, social care and diagnostics. Improved care does not mean there is an excess. As a parent who’s spent years fighting for provisions for my autistic child I assure you we’re not dealing with a glut.

Though to be fair, the plan is actually to hunt and kill the badgers… while we use metaphors along those lines about the treatment of disability, it’s not literally the case that they’re going to line us up and shoot us.

People should be as important as Badgers if some wrong doing is going on, which it is & Pats epetition should be getting huge signings too. It battles much & getting it out there is difficult to.The article is spot on.

David and Nick – the debt is running at c£1 trillion. The bank bail out was £850 billion. No clear figures on how much, if any, has been paid back. So about £150 billion debt due to all other public spending. That includes housing benefit to private (uncontrolled) landlords and unemployment benefit. HTH

So many myths surround disabled people and the Coalition have doen an excellent job of telling Joe Public that we are not cost effective and ‘economically inactive’. When I read a blog such as Lucy has written it gives me the fight to fight more. Thank you. Pat x (Pat’s Petition)

Can you contact me off the blog? pat@alliumcroft.plus.com I don’t knoew who you are and happy to leave it like thatif you want but when I read what you have written I wanted to cry. But I didn’t! Pat x

You have to get the word out is the problem, finally. Disabled people especially are probably all about the internet if they’re activists, but i’ve been trying to tell those around me who rely on TV and radio about the news concerning NHS privatisation and they’re just not having it because they haven’t heard it from any other source. They’re shocked, but then they doubt me and say ‘it’d be everywhere if it was true’. Oh ye gods…

I’ve had that talking to people, they think it would never happen or it’s just fraudsters affected. Several to be affected didn’t even know about any new changes coming to even start with. Even I was slow to believe it was this bad until I took a proper look despite my daughter telling me so months before.

Reblogged this on Matt's 2012 Journey and commented:
We need to do something about the proposed cuts to disability allowances and support. If we can fight to save badgers then surely we can fight to save disability cuts?

Christ almighty! Having seen some of the arguments put forward in this comments list to defend the disproportionate support of cute ikkle badgers over disabled people I think those hoping to change the lot of the disabled for the better are peeing in the wind. The old chestnut about benefit fraud is bad enough, but to read that it’s not the same thing because the government haven’t actually proposed a CULL of the disabled is a real eye-opener…

Badgers are wild animals. They’re perfectly happy and content to live like wild animals and do not suffer for doing so. A cull if there are problems of over-population and disease would enable the rest to live better, more comfortable, safer lives and would be largely non-selective and humanely administered.

Disabled people are human beings, and the implications for them of crushing poverty, lack of support, homelessness and social exclusion/ostracism are far more inhumane than those of an unseen and unanticipated bullet in the head for a badger. Welfare reform as it currently stands is the equivalent to removing the back legs of a domesticated badger and leaving it alone and defenceless in the woods to ‘sink or swim’. Now that would be wrong, and something to sign a petition over, wouldn’t it?